This appendix describes the overall structure of
CVS commands, and describes some commands in
detail (others are described elsewhere; for a quick
reference to cvs commands, see section Quick reference to CVS commands).

Some options that affect all sub-commands of CVS. These are
described below.

cvs_command

One of several different sub-commands. Some of the commands have
aliases that can be used instead; those aliases are noted in the
reference manual for that command. There are only two situations
where you may omit `cvs_command': `cvs -H' elicits a
list of available commands, and `cvs -v' displays version
information on CVS itself.

command_options

Options that are specific for the command.

command_args

Arguments to the commands.

There is unfortunately some confusion between
cvs_options and command_options.
When given as a cvs_option, some options only
affect some of the commands. When given as a
command_option it may have a different meaning, and
be accepted by more commands. In other words, do not
take the above categorization too seriously. Look at
the documentation instead.

CVS can indicate to the calling environment whether it
succeeded or failed by setting its exit status.
The exact way of testing the exit status will vary from
one operating system to another. For example in a unix
shell script the `$?' variable will be 0 if the
last command returned a successful exit status, or
greater than 0 if the exit status indicated failure.

If CVS is successful, it returns a successful status;
if there is an error, it prints an error message and
returns a failure status. The one exception to this is
the cvs diff command. It will return a
successful status if it found no differences, or a
failure status if there were differences or if there
was an error. Because this behavior provides no good
way to detect errors, in the future it is possible that
cvs diff will be changed to behave like the
other CVS commands.

There are some command_options that are used so
often that you might have set up an alias or some other
means to make sure you always specify that option. One
example (the one that drove the implementation of the
`.cvsrc' support, actually) is that many people find the
default output of the `diff' command to be very
hard to read, and that either context diffs or unidiffs
are much easier to understand.

The `~/.cvsrc' file is a way that you can add
default options to cvs_commands within cvs,
instead of relying on aliases or other shell scripts.

The format of the `~/.cvsrc' file is simple. The
file is searched for a line that begins with the same
name as the cvs_command being executed. If a
match is found, then the remainder of the line is split
up (at whitespace characters) into separate options and
added to the command arguments before any
options from the command line.

If a command has two names (e.g., checkout and
co), the official name, not necessarily the one
used on the command line, will be used to match against
the file. So if this is the contents of the user's
`~/.cvsrc' file:

log -N
diff -uN
rdiff -u
update -Pd
checkout -P
release -d

the command `cvs checkout foo' would have the
`-P' option added to the arguments, as well as
`cvs co foo'.

With the example file above, the output from `cvs
diff foobar' will be in unidiff format. `cvs diff
-c foobar' will provide context diffs, as usual.
Getting "old" format diffs would be slightly more
complicated, because diff doesn't have an option
to specify use of the "old" format, so you would need
`cvs -f diff foobar'.

In place of the command name you can use cvs to
specify global options (see section Global options). For
example the following line in `.cvsrc'

Authenticate all communication between the client and
the server. Only has an effect on the CVS client.
As of this writing, this is only implemented when using
a GSSAPI connection (see section Direct connection with GSSAPI).
Authentication prevents certain sorts of attacks
involving hijacking the active TCP connection.
Enabling authentication does not enable encryption.

-b bindir

In CVS 1.9.18 and older, this specified that
RCS programs are in the bindir directory.
Current versions of CVS do not run RCS
programs; for compatibility this option is accepted,
but it does nothing.

-T tempdir

Use tempdir as the directory where temporary files are
located. Overrides the setting of the $TMPDIR environment
variable and any precompiled directory. This parameter should be
specified as an absolute pathname.
(When running client/server, `-T' affects only the local process;
specifying `-T' for the client has no effect on the server and
vice versa.)

-d cvs_root_directory

Use cvs_root_directory as the root directory
pathname of the repository. Overrides the setting of
the $cvsROOT environment variable. See section The Repository.

-e editor

Use editor to enter revision log information. Overrides the
setting of the $CVSEDITOR and $EDITOR
environment variables. For more information, see
Committing your changes.

-f

Do not read the `~/.cvsrc' file. This
option is most often used because of the
non-orthogonality of the CVS option set. For
example, the `cvs log' option `-N' (turn off
display of tag names) does not have a corresponding
option to turn the display on. So if you have
`-N' in the `~/.cvsrc' entry for `log',
you may need to use `-f' to show the tag names.

-H

--help

Display usage information about the specified `cvs_command'
(but do not actually execute the command). If you don't specify
a command name, `cvs -H' displays overall help for
CVS, including a list of other help options.

-n

Do not change any files. Attempt to execute the
`cvs_command', but only to issue reports; do not remove,
update, or merge any existing files, or create any new files.

Note that CVS will not necessarily produce exactly
the same output as without `-n'. In some cases
the output will be the same, but in other cases
CVS will skip some of the processing that would
have been required to produce the exact same output.

-Q

Cause the command to be really quiet; the command will only
generate output for serious problems.

-q

Cause the command to be somewhat quiet; informational messages,
such as reports of recursion through subdirectories, are
suppressed.

Trace program execution; display messages showing the steps of
CVS activity. Particularly useful with `-n' to explore the
potential impact of an unfamiliar command.

-v

--version

Display version and copyright information for CVS.

-w

Make new working files read-write. Overrides the
setting of the $CVSREAD environment variable.
Files are created read-write by default, unless $CVSREAD is
set or `-r' is given.

-x

Encrypt all communication between the client and the
server. Only has an effect on the CVS client. As
of this writing, this is only implemented when using a
GSSAPI connection (see section Direct connection with GSSAPI) or a
Kerberos connection (see section Direct connection with Kerberos).
Enabling encryption implies that message traffic is
also authenticated. Encryption support is not
available by default; it must be enabled using a
special configure option, `--enable-encryption',
when you build CVS.

-z gzip-level

Set the compression level.
Valid levels are 1 (high speed, low compression) to
9 (low speed, high compression), or 0 to disable
compression (the default).
Only has an effect on the CVS client.

This section describes the `command_options' that
are available across several CVS commands. These
options are always given to the right of
`cvs_command'. Not all
commands support all of these options; each option is
only supported for commands where it makes sense.
However, when a command has one of these options you
can almost always count on the same behavior of the
option as in other commands. (Other command options,
which are listed with the individual commands, may have
different behavior from one CVS command to the other).

The `history' command is an exception; it supports
many options that conflict even with these standard options.

-D date_spec

Use the most recent revision no later than date_spec.
date_spec is a single argument, a date description
specifying a date in the past.

The specification is sticky when you use it to make a
private copy of a source file; that is, when you get a working
file using `-D', CVS records the date you specified, so that
further updates in the same directory will use the same date
(for more information on sticky tags/dates, see section Sticky tags).

`-D' is available with the annotate, checkout,
diff, export, history,
rdiff, rtag, and update commands.
(The history command uses this option in a
slightly different way; see section history options).

A wide variety of date formats are supported by
CVS. The most standard ones are ISO8601 (from the
International Standards Organization) and the Internet
e-mail standard (specified in RFC822 as amended by
RFC1123).

ISO8601 dates have many variants but a few examples
are:

1972-09-24
1972-09-24 20:05

There are a lot more ISO8601 date formats, and CVS
accepts many of them, but you probably don't want to
hear the whole long story :-).

In addition to the dates allowed in Internet e-mail
itself, CVS also allows some of the fields to be
omitted. For example:

24 Sep 1972 20:05
24 Sep

The date is interpreted as being in the
local timezone, unless a specific timezone is
specified.

These two date formats are preferred. However,
CVS currently accepts a wide variety of other date
formats. They are intentionally not documented here in
any detail, and future versions of CVS might not
accept all of them.

One such format is
month/day/year. This may
confuse people who are accustomed to having the month
and day in the other order; `1/4/96' is January 4,
not April 1.

Remember to quote the argument to the `-D'
flag so that your shell doesn't interpret spaces as
argument separators. A command using the `-D'
flag can look like this:

$ cvs diff -D "1 hour ago" cvs.texinfo

-f

When you specify a particular date or tag to CVS commands, they
normally ignore files that do not contain the tag (or did not
exist prior to the date) that you specified. Use the `-f' option
if you want files retrieved even when there is no match for the
tag or date. (The most recent revision of the file
will be used).

Note that even with `-f', a tag that you specify
must exist (that is, in some file, not necessary in
every file). This is so that CVS will continue to
give an error if you mistype a tag name.

`-f' is available with these commands:
annotate, checkout, export,
rdiff, rtag, and update.

WARNING: The commit and remove
commands also have a
`-f' option, but it has a different behavior for
those commands. See commit options, and
Removing files.

-k kflag

Alter the default processing of keywords.
See section Keyword substitution, for the meaning of
kflag. Your kflag specification is
sticky when you use it to create a private copy
of a source file; that is, when you use this option
with the checkout or update commands,
CVS associates your selected kflag with the
file, and continues to use it with future update
commands on the same file until you specify otherwise.

The `-k' option is available with the add,
checkout, diff, rdiff, import and
update commands.

-l

Local; run only in current working directory, rather than
recursing through subdirectories.

Use the revision specified by the tag argument instead of the
default head revision. As well as arbitrary tags defined
with the tag or rtag command, two special tags are
always available: `HEAD' refers to the most recent version
available in the repository, and `BASE' refers to the
revision you last checked out into the current working directory.

The tag specification is sticky when you use this
with checkout or update to make your own
copy of a file: CVS remembers the tag and continues to use it on
future update commands, until you specify otherwise (for more information
on sticky tags/dates, see section Sticky tags).

The tag can be either a symbolic or numeric tag, as
described in Tags-Symbolic revisions, or the name of a branch, as
described in Branching and merging.
When a command expects a specific revision,
the name of a branch is interpreted as the most recent
revision on that branch.

Specifying the `-q' global option along with the
`-r' command option is often useful, to suppress
the warning messages when the RCS file
does not contain the specified tag.

This is not the same as the overall `cvs -r' option,
which you can specify to the left of a CVS command!

`-r' is available with the annotate, checkout,
commit, diff, history, export, rdiff,
rtag, and update commands.

-W

Specify file names that should be filtered. You can
use this option repeatedly. The spec can be a file
name pattern of the same type that you can specify in
the `.cvswrappers' file.
Available with the following commands: import,
and update.

This is the CVS interface to assorted
administrative facilities. Some of them have
questionable usefulness for CVS but exist for
historical purposes. Some of the questionable options
are likely to disappear in the future. This command
does work recursively, so extreme care should be
used.

On unix, if there is a group named cvsadmin,
only members of that group can run cvs admin
(except for the cvs admin -k command, which can
be run by anybody). This group should exist on the
server, or any system running the non-client/server
CVS. To disallow cvs admin for all users,
create a group with no users in it. On NT, the
cvsadmin feature does not exist and all users
can run cvs admin.

Some of these options have questionable usefulness for
CVS but exist for historical purposes. Some even
make it impossible to use CVS until you undo the
effect!

-Aoldfile

Might not work together with CVS. Append the
access list of oldfile to the access list of the
RCS file.

-alogins

Might not work together with CVS. Append the
login names appearing in the comma-separated list
logins to the access list of the RCS file.

-b[rev]

Set the default branch to rev. In CVS, you
normally do not manipulate default branches; sticky
tags (see section Sticky tags) are a better way to decide
which branch you want to work on. There is one reason
to run cvs admin -b: to revert to the vendor's
version when using vendor branches (see section Reverting to the latest vendor release).
There can be no space between `-b' and its argument.

-cstring

Sets the comment leader to string. The comment
leader is not used by current versions of CVS or
RCS 5.7. Therefore, you can almost surely not
worry about it. See section Keyword substitution.

-e[logins]

Might not work together with CVS. Erase the login
names appearing in the comma-separated list
logins from the access list of the RCS file. If
logins is omitted, erase the entire access list.
There can be no space between `-e' and its argument.

-I

Run interactively, even if the standard input is not a
terminal. This option does not work with the
client/server CVS and is likely to disappear in
a future release of CVS.

-i

Useless with CVS. This creates and initializes a
new RCS file, without depositing a revision. With
CVS, add files with the cvs add command
(see section Adding files to a directory).

Lock the revision with number rev. If a branch
is given, lock the latest revision on that branch. If
rev is omitted, lock the latest revision on the
default branch. There can be no space between
`-l' and its argument.

This can be used in conjunction with the
`rcslock.pl' script in the `contrib'
directory of the CVS source distribution to
provide reserved checkouts (where only one user can be
editing a given file at a time). See the comments in
that file for details (and see the `README' file
in that directory for disclaimers about the unsupported
nature of contrib). According to comments in that
file, locking must set to strict (which is the default).

-L

Set locking to strict. Strict locking means that the
owner of an RCS file is not exempt from locking for
checkin. For use with CVS, strict locking must be
set; see the discussion under the `-l' option above.

-mrev:msg

Replace the log message of revision rev with
msg.

-Nname[:[rev]]

Act like `-n', except override any previous
assignment of name. For use with magic branches,
see Magic branch numbers.

-nname[:[rev]]

Associate the symbolic name name with the branch
or revision rev. It is normally better to use
`cvs tag' or `cvs rtag' instead. Delete the
symbolic name if both `:' and rev are
omitted; otherwise, print an error message if
name is already associated with another number.
If rev is symbolic, it is expanded before
association. A rev consisting of a branch number
followed by a `.' stands for the current latest
revision in the branch. A `:' with an empty
rev stands for the current latest revision on the
default branch, normally the trunk. For example,
`cvs admin -nname:' associates name with the
current latest revision of all the RCS files;
this contrasts with `cvs admin -nname:$' which
associates name with the revision numbers
extracted from keyword strings in the corresponding
working files.

-orange

Deletes (outdates) the revisions given by
range.

Note that this command can be quite dangerous unless
you know exactly what you are doing (for example
see the warnings below about how the
rev1:rev2 syntax is confusing).

If you are short on disc this option might help you.
But think twice before using it--there is no way short
of restoring the latest backup to undo this command!
If you delete different revisions than you planned,
either due to carelessness or (heaven forbid) a CVS
bug, there is no opportunity to correct the error
before the revisions are deleted. It probably would be
a good idea to experiment on a copy of the repository
first.

Specify range in one of the following ways:

rev1::rev2

Collapse all revisions between rev1 and rev2, so that
CVS only stores the differences associated with going
from rev1 to rev2, not intermediate steps. For
example, after `-o 1.3::1.5' one can retrieve
revision 1.3, revision 1.5, or the differences to get
from 1.3 to 1.5, but not the revision 1.4, or the
differences between 1.3 and 1.4. Other examples:
`-o 1.3::1.4' and `-o 1.3::1.3' have no
effect, because there are no intermediate revisions to
remove.

::rev

Collapse revisions between the beginning of the branch
containing rev and rev itself. The
branchpoint and rev are left intact. For
example, `-o ::1.3.2.6' deletes revision 1.3.2.1,
revision 1.3.2.5, and everything in between, but leaves
1.3 and 1.3.2.6 intact.

rev::

Collapse revisions between rev and the end of the
branch containing rev. Revision rev is
left intact but the head revision is deleted.

rev

Delete the revision rev. For example, `-o
1.3' is equivalent to `-o 1.2::1.4'.

rev1:rev2

Delete the revisions from rev1 to rev2,
inclusive, on the same branch. One will not be able to
retrieve rev1 or rev2 or any of the
revisions in between. For example, the command
`cvs admin -oR_1_01:R_1_02 .' is rarely useful.
It means to delete revisions up to, and including, the
tag R_1_02. But beware! If there are files that have not
changed between R_1_02 and R_1_03 the file will have
the same numerical revision number assigned to
the tags R_1_02 and R_1_03. So not only will it be
impossible to retrieve R_1_02; R_1_03 will also have to
be restored from the tapes! In most cases you want to
specify rev1::rev2 instead.

:rev

Delete revisions from the beginning of the
branch containing rev up to and including
rev.

rev:

Delete revisions from revision rev, including
rev itself, to the end of the branch containing
rev.

None of the revisions to be deleted may have
branches or locks.

If any of the revisions to be deleted have symbolic
names, and one specifies one of the `::' syntaxes,
then CVS will give an error and not delete any
revisions. If you really want to delete both the
symbolic names and the revisions, first delete the
symbolic names with cvs tag -d, then run
cvs admin -o. If one specifies the
non-`::' syntaxes, then CVS will delete the
revisions but leave the symbolic names pointing to
nonexistent revisions. This behavior is preserved for
compatibility with previous versions of CVS, but
because it isn't very useful, in the future it may
change to be like the `::' case.

Due to the way CVS handles branches rev
cannot be specified symbolically if it is a branch.
See section Magic branch numbers, for an explanation.

Make sure that no-one has checked out a copy of the
revision you outdate. Strange things will happen if he
starts to edit it and tries to check it back in. For
this reason, this option is not a good way to take back
a bogus commit; commit a new revision undoing the bogus
change instead (see section Merging differences between any two revisions).

-q

Run quietly; do not print diagnostics.

-sstate[:rev]

Useful with CVS. Set the state attribute of the
revision rev to state. If rev is a
branch number, assume the latest revision on that
branch. If rev is omitted, assume the latest
revision on the default branch. Any identifier is
acceptable for state. A useful set of states is
`Exp' (for experimental), `Stab' (for
stable), and `Rel' (for released). By default,
the state of a new revision is set to `Exp' when
it is created. The state is visible in the output from
cvs log (see section log--Print out log information for files), and in the
`$Log$' and `$State$' keywords
(see section Keyword substitution). Note that CVS
uses the dead state for its own purposes (see section The attic); to
take a file to or from the dead state use
commands like cvs remove and cvs add
(see section Adding, removing, and renaming files and directories), not cvs admin -s.

-t[file]

Useful with CVS. Write descriptive text from the
contents of the named file into the RCS file,
deleting the existing text. The file pathname
may not begin with `-'. The descriptive text can be seen in the
output from `cvs log' (see section log--Print out log information for files).
There can be no space between `-t' and its argument.

If file is omitted,
obtain the text from standard input, terminated by
end-of-file or by a line containing `.' by itself.
Prompt for the text if interaction is possible; see
`-I'.

-t-string

Similar to `-tfile'. Write descriptive text
from the string into the RCS file, deleting
the existing text.
There can be no space between `-t' and its argument.

-U

Set locking to non-strict. Non-strict locking means
that the owner of a file need not lock a revision for
checkin. For use with CVS, strict locking must be
set; see the discussion under the `-l' option
above.

-u[rev]

See the option `-l' above, for a discussion of
using this option with CVS. Unlock the revision
with number rev. If a branch is given, unlock
the latest revision on that branch. If rev is
omitted, remove the latest lock held by the caller.
Normally, only the locker of a revision may unlock it;
somebody else unlocking a revision breaks the lock.
This causes the original locker to be sent a commit
notification (see section Telling CVS to notify you).
There can be no space between `-u' and its argument.

-Vn

In previous versions of CVS, this option meant to
write an RCS file which would be acceptable to
RCS version n, but it is now obsolete and
specifying it will produce an error.

-xsuffixes

In previous versions of CVS, this was documented
as a way of specifying the names of the RCS
files. However, CVS has always required that the
RCS files used by CVS end in `,v', so
this option has never done anything useful.

The file `ssfile' currently contains two lines.
The ssfile line 1 line was checked in by
mary on March 27. Then, on March 28, joe
added a line ssfile line 2, without modifying
the ssfile line 1 line. This report doesn't
tell you anything about lines which have been deleted
or replaced; you need to use cvs diff for that
(see section diff--Show differences between revisions).

Create or update a working directory containing copies of the
source files specified by modules. You must execute
checkout before using most of the other CVS
commands, since most of them operate on your working
directory.

The modules are either
symbolic names for some
collection of source directories and files, or paths to
directories or files in the repository. The symbolic
names are defined in the `modules' file.
See section The modules file.

Depending on the modules you specify, checkout may
recursively create directories and populate them with
the appropriate source files. You can then edit these
source files at any time (regardless of whether other
software developers are editing their own copies of the
sources); update them to include new changes applied by
others to the source repository; or commit your work as
a permanent change to the source repository.

Note that checkout is used to create
directories. The top-level directory created is always
added to the directory where checkout is
invoked, and usually has the same name as the specified
module. In the case of a module alias, the created
sub-directory may have a different name, but you can be
sure that it will be a sub-directory, and that
checkout will show the relative path leading to
each file as it is extracted into your private work
area (unless you specify the `-Q' global option).

Note that running checkout on a directory that was already
built by a prior checkout is also permitted.
This is similar to specifying the `-d' option
to the update command in the sense that new
directories that have been created in the repository
will appear in your work area.
However, checkout takes a module name whereas
update takes a directory name. Also
to use checkout this way it must be run from the
top level directory (where you originally ran
checkout from), so before you run
checkout to update an existing directory, don't
forget to change your directory to the top level
directory.

These standard options are supported by checkout
(see section Common command options, for a complete description of
them):

-D date

Use the most recent revision no later than date.
This option is sticky, and implies `-P'. See
Sticky tags, for more information on sticky tags/dates.

-f

Only useful with the `-D date' or `-r
tag' flags. If no matching revision is found,
retrieve the most recent revision (instead of ignoring
the file).

-k kflag

Process keywords according to kflag. See
Keyword substitution.
This option is sticky; future updates of
this file in this working directory will use the same
kflag. The status command can be viewed
to see the sticky options. See Quick reference to CVS commands, for
more information on the status command.

-l

Local; run only in current working directory.

-n

Do not run any checkout program (as specified
with the `-o' option in the modules file;
see section The modules file).

Use revision tag. This option is sticky, and implies `-P'.
See Sticky tags, for more information on sticky tags/dates.

In addition to those, you can use these special command
options with checkout:

-A

Reset any sticky tags, dates, or `-k' options.
Does not reset sticky `-k' options on modified files.
See Sticky tags, for more information on sticky tags/dates.

-c

Copy the module file, sorted, to the standard output,
instead of creating or modifying any files or
directories in your working directory.

-d dir

Create a directory called dir for the working
files, instead of using the module name. In general,
using this flag is equivalent to using `mkdir
dir; cd dir' followed by the checkout
command without the `-d' flag.

There is an important exception, however. It is very
convenient when checking out a single item to have the
output appear in a directory that doesn't contain empty
intermediate directories. In this case only,
CVS tries to "shorten" pathnames to avoid those empty
directories.

For example, given a module `foo' that contains
the file `bar.c', the command `cvs co -d dir
foo' will create directory `dir' and place
`bar.c' inside. Similarly, given a module
`bar' which has subdirectory `baz' wherein
there is a file `quux.c', the command `cvs co
-d dir bar/baz' will create directory `dir' and
place `quux.c' inside.

Using the `-N' flag will defeat this behavior.
Given the same module definitions above, `cvs co
-N -d dir foo' will create directories `dir/foo'
and place `bar.c' inside, while `cvs co -N -d
dir bar/baz' will create directories `dir/bar/baz'
and place `quux.c' inside.

-j tag

With two `-j' options, merge changes from the
revision specified with the first `-j' option to
the revision specified with the second `j' option,
into the working directory.

With one `-j' option, merge changes from the
ancestor revision to the revision specified with the
`-j' option, into the working directory. The
ancestor revision is the common ancestor of the
revision which the working directory is based on, and
the revision specified in the `-j' option.

In addition, each -j option can contain an optional
date specification which, when used with branches, can
limit the chosen revision to one within a specific
date. An optional date is specified by adding a colon
(:) to the tag:
`-jSymbolic_Tag:Date_Specifier'.

Only useful together with `-d dir'. With
this option, CVS will not "shorten" module paths
in your working directory when you check out a single
module. See the `-d' flag for examples and a
discussion.

-s

Like `-c', but include the status of all modules,
and sort it by the status string. See section The modules file, for
info about the `-s' option that is used inside the
modules file to set the module status.

Use commit when you want to incorporate changes
from your working source files into the source
repository.

If you don't specify particular files to commit, all of
the files in your working current directory are
examined. commit is careful to change in the
repository only those files that you have really
changed. By default (or if you explicitly specify the
`-R' option), files in subdirectories are also
examined and committed if they have changed; you can
use the `-l' option to limit commit to the
current directory only.

commit verifies that the selected files are up
to date with the current revisions in the source
repository; it will notify you, and exit without
committing, if any of the specified files must be made
current first with update (see section update--Bring work tree in sync with repository).
commit does not call the update command
for you, but rather leaves that for you to do when the
time is right.

When all is well, an editor is invoked to allow you to
enter a log message that will be written to one or more
logging programs (see section The modules file, and see section Loginfo)
and placed in the RCS file inside the
repository. This log message can be retrieved with the
log command; see log--Print out log information for files. You can specify the
log message on the command line with the `-m
message' option, and thus avoid the editor invocation,
or use the `-F file' option to specify
that the argument file contains the log message.

These standard options are supported by commit
(see section Common command options, for a complete description of
them):

-l

Local; run only in current working directory.

-R

Commit directories recursively. This is on by default.

-r revision

Commit to revision. revision must be
either a branch, or a revision on the main trunk that
is higher than any existing revision number
(see section Assigning revisions). You
cannot commit to a specific revision on a branch.

You can commit to a branch revision (one that has an
even number of dots) with the `-r' option. To
create a branch revision, use the `-b' option
of the rtag or tag commands
(see section Branching and merging). Then, either checkout or
update can be used to base your sources on the
newly created branch. From that point on, all
commit changes made within these working sources
will be automatically added to a branch revision,
thereby not disturbing main-line development in any
way. For example, if you had to create a patch to the
1.2 version of the product, even though the 2.0 version
is already under development, you might do:

Say you have been working on some extremely
experimental software, based on whatever revision you
happened to checkout last week. If others in your
group would like to work on this software with you, but
without disturbing main-line development, you could
commit your change to a new branch. Others can then
checkout your experimental stuff and utilize the full
benefit of CVS conflict resolution. The scenario might
look like:

The update command will make the `-r
EXPR1' option sticky on all files. Note that your
changes to the files will never be removed by the
update command. The commit will
automatically commit to the correct branch, because the
`-r' is sticky. You could also do like this:

but then, only those files that were changed by you
will have the `-r EXPR1' sticky flag. If you hack
away, and commit without specifying the `-r EXPR1'
flag, some files may accidentally end up on the main
trunk.

Compare with revision tag. Zero, one or two
`-r' options can be present. With no `-r'
option, the working file will be compared with the
revision it was based on. With one `-r', that
revision will be compared to your current working file.
With two `-r' options those two revisions will be
compared (and your working file will not affect the
outcome in any way).

One or both `-r' options can be replaced by a
`-D date' option, described above.

The following options specify the format of the
output. They have the same meaning as in GNU diff.
Most options have two equivalent names, one of which is a single letter
preceded by `-', and the other of which is a long name preceded by
`--'.

`-lines'

Show lines (an integer) lines of context. This option does not
specify an output format by itself; it has no effect unless it is
combined with `-c' or `-u'. This option is obsolete. For proper
operation, patch typically needs at least two lines of context.

`-a'

Treat all files as text and compare them line-by-line, even if they
do not seem to be text.

`-b'

Ignore trailing white space and consider all other sequences of one or
more white space characters to be equivalent.

`-B'

Ignore changes that just insert or delete blank lines.

`--binary'

Read and write data in binary mode.

`--brief'

Report only whether the files differ, not the details of the
differences.

`-c'

Use the context output format.

`-C lines'

`--context[=lines]'

Use the context output format, showing lines (an integer) lines of
context, or three if lines is not given.
For proper operation, patch typically needs at least two lines of
context.

`--changed-group-format=format'

Use format to output a line group containing differing lines from
both files in if-then-else format. See section Line group formats.

`-d'

Change the algorithm to perhaps find a smaller set of changes. This makes
diff slower (sometimes much slower).

`-e'

`--ed'

Make output that is a valid ed script.

`--expand-tabs'

Expand tabs to spaces in the output, to preserve the alignment of tabs
in the input files.

`-f'

Make output that looks vaguely like an ed script but has changes
in the order they appear in the file.

`-F regexp'

In context and unified format, for each hunk of differences, show some
of the last preceding line that matches regexp.

`--forward-ed'

Make output that looks vaguely like an ed script but has changes
in the order they appear in the file.

`-H'

Use heuristics to speed handling of large files that have numerous
scattered small changes.

`--horizon-lines=lines'

Do not discard the last lines lines of the common prefix
and the first lines lines of the common suffix.

Line group formats let you specify formats suitable for many
applications that allow if-then-else input, including programming
languages and text formatting languages. A line group format specifies
the output format for a contiguous group of similar lines.

For example, the following command compares the TeX file `myfile'
with the original version from the repository,
and outputs a merged file in which old regions are
surrounded by `\begin{em}'-`\end{em}' lines, and new
regions are surrounded by `\begin{bf}'-`\end{bf}' lines.

To specify a line group format, use one of the options
listed below. You can specify up to four line group formats, one for
each kind of line group. You should quote format, because it
typically contains shell metacharacters.

`--old-group-format=format'

These line groups are hunks containing only lines from the first file.
The default old group format is the same as the changed group format if
it is specified; otherwise it is a format that outputs the line group as-is.

`--new-group-format=format'

These line groups are hunks containing only lines from the second
file. The default new group format is same as the changed group
format if it is specified; otherwise it is a format that outputs the
line group as-is.

`--changed-group-format=format'

These line groups are hunks containing lines from both files. The
default changed group format is the concatenation of the old and new
group formats.

`--unchanged-group-format=format'

These line groups contain lines common to both files. The default
unchanged group format is a format that outputs the line group as-is.

In a line group format, ordinary characters represent themselves;
conversion specifications start with `%' and have one of the
following forms.

`%<'

stands for the lines from the first file, including the trailing newline.
Each line is formatted according to the old line format (see section Line formats).

`%>'

stands for the lines from the second file, including the trailing newline.
Each line is formatted according to the new line format.

`%='

stands for the lines common to both files, including the trailing newline.
Each line is formatted according to the unchanged line format.

`%%'

stands for `%'.

`%c'C''

where C is a single character, stands for C.
C may not be a backslash or an apostrophe.
For example, `%c':'' stands for a colon, even inside
the then-part of an if-then-else format, which a colon would
normally terminate.

`%c'\O''

where O is a string of 1, 2, or 3 octal digits,
stands for the character with octal code O.
For example, `%c'\0'' stands for a null character.

`Fn'

where F is a printf conversion specification and n is one
of the following letters, stands for n's value formatted with F.

`e'

The line number of the line just before the group in the old file.

`f'

The line number of the first line in the group in the old file;
equals e + 1.

`l'

The line number of the last line in the group in the old file.

`m'

The line number of the line just after the group in the old file;
equals l + 1.

`n'

The number of lines in the group in the old file; equals l - f + 1.

`E, F, L, M, N'

Likewise, for lines in the new file.

The printf conversion specification can be `%d',
`%o', `%x', or `%X', specifying decimal, octal,
lower case hexadecimal, or upper case hexadecimal output
respectively. After the `%' the following options can appear in
sequence: a `-' specifying left-justification; an integer
specifying the minimum field width; and a period followed by an
optional integer specifying the minimum number of digits.
For example, `%5dN' prints the number of new lines in the group
in a field of width 5 characters, using the printf format "%5d".

`(A=B?T:E)'

If A equals B then T else E.
A and B are each either a decimal constant
or a single letter interpreted as above.
This format spec is equivalent to T if
A's value equals B's; otherwise it is equivalent to E.

For example, `%(N=0?no:%dN) line%(N=1?:s)' is equivalent to
`no lines' if N (the number of lines in the group in the
new file) is 0, to `1 line' if N is 1, and to `%dN lines'
otherwise.

Line formats control how each line taken from an input file is
output as part of a line group in if-then-else format.

For example, the following command outputs text with a one-column
change indicator to the left of the text. The first column of output
is `-' for deleted lines, `|' for added lines, and a space
for unchanged lines. The formats contain newline characters where
newlines are desired on output.

To specify a line format, use one of the following options. You should
quote format, since it often contains shell metacharacters.

`--old-line-format=format'

formats lines just from the first file.

`--new-line-format=format'

formats lines just from the second file.

`--unchanged-line-format=format'

formats lines common to both files.

`--line-format=format'

formats all lines; in effect, it sets all three above options simultaneously.

In a line format, ordinary characters represent themselves;
conversion specifications start with `%' and have one of the
following forms.

`%l'

stands for the contents of the line, not counting its trailing
newline (if any). This format ignores whether the line is incomplete.

`%L'

stands for the contents of the line, including its trailing newline
(if any). If a line is incomplete, this format preserves its
incompleteness.

`%%'

stands for `%'.

`%c'C''

where C is a single character, stands for C.
C may not be a backslash or an apostrophe.
For example, `%c':'' stands for a colon.

`%c'\O''

where O is a string of 1, 2, or 3 octal digits,
stands for the character with octal code O.
For example, `%c'\0'' stands for a null character.

`Fn'

where F is a printf conversion specification,
stands for the line number formatted with F.
For example, `%.5dn' prints the line number using the
printf format "%.5d". See section Line group formats, for
more about printf conversion specifications.

The default line format is `%l' followed by a newline character.

If the input contains tab characters and it is important that they line
up on output, you should ensure that `%l' or `%L' in a line
format is just after a tab stop (e.g. by preceding `%l' or
`%L' with a tab character), or you should use the `-t' or
`--expand-tabs' option.

Taken together, the line and line group formats let you specify many
different formats. For example, the following command uses a format
similar to diff's normal format. You can tailor this command
to get fine control over diff's output.

The following line produces a Unidiff (`-u' flag)
between revision 1.14 and 1.19 of
`backend.c'. Due to the `-kk' flag no
keywords are substituted, so differences that only depend
on keyword substitution are ignored.

$ cvs diff -kk -u -r 1.14 -r 1.19 backend.c

Suppose the experimental branch EXPR1 was based on a
set of files tagged RELEASE_1_0. To see what has
happened on that branch, the following can be used:

$ cvs diff -r RELEASE_1_0 -r EXPR1

A command like this can be used to produce a context
diff between two releases:

$ cvs diff -c -r RELEASE_1_0 -r RELEASE_1_1 > diffs

If you are maintaining ChangeLogs, a command like the following
just before you commit your changes may help you write
the ChangeLog entry. All local modifications that have
not yet been committed will be printed.

This command is a variant of checkout; use it
when you want a copy of the source for module without
the CVS administrative directories. For example, you
might use export to prepare source for shipment
off-site. This command requires that you specify a
date or tag (with `-D' or `-r'), so that you
can count on reproducing the source you ship to others
(and thus it always prunes empty directories).

One often would like to use `-kv' with cvs
export. This causes any keywords to be
expanded such that an import done at some other site
will not lose the keyword revision information. But be
aware that doesn't handle an export containing binary
files correctly. Also be aware that after having used
`-kv', one can no longer use the ident
command (which is part of the RCS suite--see
ident(1)) which looks for keyword strings. If
you want to be able to use ident you must not
use `-kv'.

Several options (shown above as `-report') control what
kind of report is generated:

-c

Report on each time commit was used (i.e., each time
the repository was modified).

-e

Everything (all record types). Equivalent to
specifying `-x' with all record types. Of course,
`-e' will also include record types which are
added in a future version of CVS; if you are
writing a script which can only handle certain record
types, you'll want to specify `-x'.

-m module

Report on a particular module. (You can meaningfully
use `-m' more than once on the command line.)

-o

Report on checked-out modules. This is the default report type.

-T

Report on all tags.

-x type

Extract a particular set of record types type from the CVS
history. The types are indicated by single letters,
which you may specify in combination.

Certain commands have a single record type:

F

release

O

checkout

E

export

T

rtag

One of five record types may result from an update:

C

A merge was necessary but collisions were
detected (requiring manual merging).

G

A merge was necessary and it succeeded.

U

A working file was copied from the repository.

P

A working file was patched to match the repository.

W

The working copy of a file was deleted during
update (because it was gone from the repository).

One of three record types results from commit:

A

A file was added for the first time.

M

A file was modified.

R

A file was removed.

The options shown as `-flags' constrain or expand
the report without requiring option arguments:

-a

Show data for all users (the default is to show data
only for the user executing history).

-l

Show last modification only.

-w

Show only the records for modifications done from the
same working directory where history is
executing.

The options shown as `-options args' constrain the report
based on an argument:

-b str

Show data back to a record containing the string
str in either the module name, the file name, or
the repository path.

-D date

Show data since date. This is slightly different
from the normal use of `-D date', which
selects the newest revision older than date.

-f file

Show data for a particular file
(you can specify several `-f' options on the same command line).
This is equivalent to specifying the file on the command line.

-n module

Show data for a particular module
(you can specify several `-n' options on the same command line).

-p repository

Show data for a particular source repository (you
can specify several `-p' options on the same command
line).

-r rev

Show records referring to revisions since the revision
or tag named rev appears in individual RCS
files. Each RCS file is searched for the revision or
tag.

-t tag

Show records since tag tag was last added to the
history file. This differs from the `-r' flag
above in that it reads only the history file, not the
RCS files, and is much faster.

-u name

Show records for user name.

-z timezone

Show times in the selected records using the specified
time zone instead of UTC.

Use import to incorporate an entire source
distribution from an outside source (e.g., a source
vendor) into your source repository directory. You can
use this command both for initial creation of a
repository, and for wholesale updates to the module
from the outside source. See section Tracking third-party sources, for
a discussion on this subject.

The repository argument gives a directory name
(or a path to a directory) under the CVS root directory
for repositories; if the directory did not exist,
import creates it.

When you use import for updates to source that has been
modified in your source repository (since a prior
import), it will notify you of any files that conflict
in the two branches of development; use `checkout
-j' to reconcile the differences, as import instructs
you to do.

If CVS decides a file should be ignored
(see section Ignoring files via cvsignore), it does not import it and prints
`I ' followed by the filename (see section import output, for a
complete description of the output).

If the file `$CVSROOT/CVSROOT/cvswrappers' exists,
any file whose names match the specifications in that
file will be treated as packages and the appropriate
filtering will be performed on the file/directory
before being imported. See section The cvswrappers file.

The outside source is saved in a first-level
branch, by default 1.1.1. Updates are leaves of this
branch; for example, files from the first imported
collection of source will be revision 1.1.1.1, then
files from the first imported update will be revision
1.1.1.2, and so on.

At least three arguments are required.
repository is needed to identify the collection
of source. vendortag is a tag for the entire
branch (e.g., for 1.1.1). You must also specify at
least one releasetag to uniquely identify the files at
the leaves created each time you execute import. The
releasetag should be new, not previously existing in the
repository file, and uniquely identify the imported release,

Note that import does not change the
directory in which you invoke it. In particular, it
does not set up that directory as a CVS working
directory; if you want to work with the sources import
them first and then check them out into a different
directory (see section Getting the source).

Indicate the keyword expansion mode desired. This
setting will apply to all files created during the
import, but not to any files that previously existed in
the repository. See Substitution modes, for a
list of valid `-k' settings.

-I name

Specify file names that should be ignored during
import. You can use this option repeatedly. To avoid
ignoring any files at all (even those ignored by
default), specify `-I !'.

The file is a symbolic link; cvs import ignores symbolic links.
People periodically suggest that this behavior should
be changed, but if there is a consensus on what it
should be changed to, it doesn't seem to be apparent.
(Various options in the `modules' file can be used
to recreate symbolic links on checkout, update, etc.;
see section The modules file.)

Display log information for files. log used to
call the RCS utility rlog. Although this
is no longer true in the current sources, this history
determines the format of the output and the options,
which are not quite in the style of the other CVS
commands.

The output includes the location of the RCS file,
the head revision (the latest revision on the
trunk), all symbolic names (tags) and some other
things. For each revision, the revision number, the
author, the number of lines added/deleted and the log
message are printed. All times are displayed in
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). (Other parts of
CVS print times in the local timezone).

By default, log prints all information that is
available. All other options restrict the output. Note that the revision
selection options (-d, -r, -s, and -w) have no
effect, other than possibly causing a search for files in Attic directories,
when used in conjunction with the options that restrict the output to only
log header fields (-b, -h, -R, and -t)
unless the -S option is also specified.

-b

Print information about the revisions on the default
branch, normally the highest branch on the trunk.

-d dates

Print information about revisions with a checkin
date/time in the range given by the
semicolon-separated list of dates. The date formats
accepted are those accepted by the `-D' option to
many other CVS commands (see section Common command options).
Dates can be combined into ranges as follows:

d1<d2

d2>d1

Select the revisions that were deposited between
d1 and d2.

<d

d>

Select all revisions dated d or earlier.

d<

>d

Select all revisions dated d or later.

d

Select the single, latest revision dated d or
earlier.

The `>' or `<' characters may be followed by
`=' to indicate an inclusive range rather than an
exclusive one.

Note that the separator is a semicolon (;).

-h

Print only the name of the RCS file, name
of the file in the working directory, head,
default branch, access list, locks, symbolic names, and
suffix.

-l

Local; run only in current working directory. (Default
is to run recursively).

-N

Do not print the list of tags for this file. This
option can be very useful when your site uses a lot of
tags, so rather than "more"'ing over 3 pages of tag
information, the log information is presented without
tags at all.

-R

Print only the name of the RCS file.

-rrevisions

Print information about revisions given in the
comma-separated list revisions of revisions and
ranges. The following table explains the available
range formats:

rev1:rev2

Revisions rev1 to rev2 (which must be on
the same branch).

rev1::rev2

The same, but excluding rev1.

:rev

::rev

Revisions from the beginning of the branch up to
and including rev.

rev:

Revisions starting with rev to the end of the
branch containing rev.

rev::

Revisions starting just after rev to the end of the
branch containing rev.

branch

An argument that is a branch means all revisions on
that branch.

branch1:branch2

branch1::branch2

A range of branches means all revisions
on the branches in that range.

branch.

The latest revision in branch.

A bare `-r' with no revisions means the latest
revision on the default branch, normally the trunk.
There can be no space between the `-r' option and
its argument.

-S

Suppress the header if no revisions are selected.

-s states

Print information about revisions whose state
attributes match one of the states given in the
comma-separated list states. Individual states may
be any text string, though CVS commonly only uses two
states, `Exp' and `dead'. See admin options
for more information.

-t

Print the same as `-h', plus the descriptive text.

-wlogins

Print information about revisions checked in by users
with login names appearing in the comma-separated list
logins. If logins is omitted, the user's
login is assumed. There can be no space between the
`-w' option and its argument.

log prints the intersection of the revisions
selected with the options `-d', `-s', and
`-w', intersected with the union of the revisions
selected by `-b' and `-r'.

Builds a Larry Wall format patch(1) file between two
releases, that can be fed directly into the patch
program to bring an old release up-to-date with the new
release. (This is one of the few CVS commands that
operates directly from the repository, and doesn't
require a prior checkout.) The diff output is sent to
the standard output device.

You can specify (using the standard `-r' and
`-D' options) any combination of one or two
revisions or dates. If only one revision or date is
specified, the patch file reflects differences between
that revision or date and the current head revisions in
the RCS file.

Note that if the software release affected is contained
in more than one directory, then it may be necessary to
specify the `-p' option to the patch command when
patching the old sources, so that patch is able to find
the files that are located in other directories.

Create a summary change report instead of a patch. The
summary includes information about files that were
changed or added between the releases. It is sent to
the standard output device. This is useful for finding
out, for example, which files have changed between two
dates or revisions.

-t

A diff of the top two revisions is sent to the standard
output device. This is most useful for seeing what the
last change to a file was.

-u

Use the unidiff format for the context diffs.
Remember that old versions
of the patch program can't handle the unidiff
format, so if you plan to post this patch to the net
you should probably not use `-u'.

-V vn

Expand keywords according to the rules current in
RCS version vn (the expansion format changed with
RCS version 5). Note that this option is no
longer accepted. CVS will always expand keywords the
way that RCS version 5 does.

Suppose you receive mail from foo@example.net asking for an
update from release 1.2 to 1.4 of the tc compiler. You
have no such patches on hand, but with CVS that can
easily be fixed with a command such as this:

Suppose you have made release 1.3, and forked a branch
called `R_1_3fix' for bug fixes. `R_1_3_1'
corresponds to release 1.3.1, which was made some time
ago. Now, you want to see how much development has been
done on the branch. This command can be used:

This command is meant to safely cancel the effect of
`cvs checkout'. Since CVS doesn't lock files, it
isn't strictly necessary to use this command. You can
always simply delete your working directory, if you
like; but you risk losing changes you may have
forgotten, and you leave no trace in the CVS history
file (see section The history file) that you've abandoned your
checkout.

Use `cvs release' to avoid these problems. This
command checks that no uncommitted changes are
present; that you are executing it from immediately
above a CVS working directory; and that the repository
recorded for your files is the same as the repository
defined in the module database.

If all these conditions are true, `cvs release'
leaves a record of its execution (attesting to your
intentionally abandoning your checkout) in the CVS
history log.

Delete your working copy of the file if the release
succeeds. If this flag is not given your files will
remain in your working directory.

WARNING: The release command deletes
all directories and files recursively. This
has the very serious side-effect that any directory
that you have created inside your checked-out sources,
and not added to the repository (using the add
command; see section Adding files to a directory) will be silently deleted--even
if it is non-empty!

Before release releases your sources it will
print a one-line message for any file that is not
up-to-date.

U file

P file

There exists a newer revision of this file in the
repository, and you have not modified your local copy
of the file (`U' and `P' mean the same thing).

A file

The file has been added to your private copy of the
sources, but has not yet been committed to the
repository. If you delete your copy of the sources
this file will be lost.

R file

The file has been removed from your private copy of the
sources, but has not yet been removed from the
repository, since you have not yet committed the
removal. See section commit--Check files into the repository.

M file

The file is modified in your working directory. There
might also be a newer revision inside the repository.

? file

file is in your working directory, but does not
correspond to anything in the source repository, and is
not in the list of files for CVS to ignore (see the
description of the `-I' option, and
see section Ignoring files via cvsignore). If you remove your working
sources, this file will be lost.

After you've run checkout to create your private copy
of source from the common repository, other developers
will continue changing the central source. From time
to time, when it is convenient in your development
process, you can use the update command from
within your working directory to reconcile your work
with any revisions applied to the source repository
since your last checkout or update.

These standard options are available with update
(see section Common command options, for a complete description of
them):

-D date

Use the most recent revision no later than date.
This option is sticky, and implies `-P'.
See Sticky tags, for more information on sticky tags/dates.

-f

Only useful with the `-D date' or `-r
tag' flags. If no matching revision is found,
retrieve the most recent revision (instead of ignoring
the file).

-k kflag

Process keywords according to kflag. See
Keyword substitution.
This option is sticky; future updates of
this file in this working directory will use the same
kflag. The status command can be viewed
to see the sticky options. See Quick reference to CVS commands, for
more information on the status command.

Retrieve revision/tag rev. This option is sticky,
and implies `-P'.
See Sticky tags, for more information on sticky tags/dates.

These special options are also available with
update.

-A

Reset any sticky tags, dates, or `-k' options.
Does not reset sticky `-k' options on modified files.
See Sticky tags, for more information on sticky tags/dates.

-C

Overwrite locally modified files with clean copies from
the repository (the modified file is saved in
`.#file.revision', however).

-d

Create any directories that exist in the repository if
they're missing from the working directory. Normally,
update acts only on directories and files that
were already enrolled in your working directory.

This is useful for updating directories that were
created in the repository since the initial checkout;
but it has an unfortunate side effect. If you
deliberately avoided certain directories in the
repository when you created your working directory
(either through use of a module name or by listing
explicitly the files and directories you wanted on the
command line), then updating with `-d' will create
those directories, which may not be what you want.

-I name

Ignore files whose names match name (in your
working directory) during the update. You can specify
`-I' more than once on the command line to specify
several files to ignore. Use `-I !' to avoid
ignoring any files at all. See section Ignoring files via cvsignore, for other
ways to make CVS ignore some files.

-Wspec

Specify file names that should be filtered during
update. You can use this option repeatedly.

spec can be a file name pattern of the same type
that you can specify in the `.cvswrappers'
file. See section The cvswrappers file.

-jrevision

With two `-j' options, merge changes from the
revision specified with the first `-j' option to
the revision specified with the second `j' option,
into the working directory.

With one `-j' option, merge changes from the
ancestor revision to the revision specified with the
`-j' option, into the working directory. The
ancestor revision is the common ancestor of the
revision which the working directory is based on, and
the revision specified in the `-j' option.

Note that using a single `-j tagname' option rather than
`-j branchname' to merge changes from a branch will
often not remove files which were removed on the branch.
See section Merging can add or remove files, for more.

In addition, each `-j' option can contain an optional
date specification which, when used with branches, can
limit the chosen revision to one within a specific
date. An optional date is specified by adding a colon
(:) to the tag:
`-jSymbolic_Tag:Date_Specifier'.

update and checkout keep you informed of
their progress by printing a line for each file, preceded
by one character indicating the status of the file:

U file

The file was brought up to date with respect to the
repository. This is done for any file that exists in
the repository but not in your working directory, and for files
that you haven't changed but are not the most recent
versions available in the repository.

P file

Like `U', but the CVS server sends a patch instead of an entire
file. This accomplishes the same thing as `U' using less bandwidth.

A file

The file has been added to your private copy of the
sources, and will be added to the source repository
when you run commit on the file. This is a
reminder to you that the file needs to be committed.

R file

The file has been removed from your private copy of the
sources, and will be removed from the source repository
when you run commit on the file. This is a
reminder to you that the file needs to be committed.

M file

The file is modified in your working directory.

`M' can indicate one of two states for a file
you're working on: either there were no modifications
to the same file in the repository, so that your file
remains as you last saw it; or there were modifications
in the repository as well as in your copy, but they
were merged successfully, without conflict, in your
working directory.

CVS will print some messages if it merges your work,
and a backup copy of your working file (as it looked
before you ran update) will be made. The exact
name of that file is printed while update runs.

C file

A conflict was detected while trying to merge your
changes to file with changes from the source
repository. file (the copy in your working
directory) is now the result of attempting to merge
the two revisions; an unmodified copy of your file
is also in your working directory, with the name
`.#file.revision' where revision
is the revision that your modified file started
from. Resolve the conflict as described in
Conflicts example.
(Note that some systems automatically purge
files that begin with `.#' if they have not been
accessed for a few days. If you intend to keep a copy
of your original file, it is a very good idea to rename
it.) Under VMS, the file name starts with
`__' rather than `.#'.

? file

file is in your working directory, but does not
correspond to anything in the source repository, and is
not in the list of files for CVS to ignore (see the
description of the `-I' option, and
see section Ignoring files via cvsignore).